After bustling in the kitchen for a bit, Shen An returned to the living room while waiting for the noodles to cook.
Xu Yijing looked like she’d gone into hibernation.
She clutched her lower abdomen tightly, her little mouth pursing and parting by turns. Her curled-up body resembled a shivering kitten in the cold.
“This doesn’t look like ordinary food poisoning.”
Shen An rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I should call a doctor for you.”
She opened her eyes shakily and forced out words. “I don’t need your pity.”
“Stubborn to the end, huh.”
Shen An narrowed his eyes and turned away.
“You’d better pray I pull through.” Xu Yijing’s ghostly voice halted his steps. “Otherwise, you’ll bear full responsibility.”
“Scaring me again?” Shen An glanced back with a mocking smile.
“No—you’re the one scaring me.”
Xu Yijing’s lips curved faintly. “You almost had me fooled for real.”
“If I actually died in this apartment, how could you escape the blame?”
“Even if you wiped away every trace perfectly, my body’s covered in your fingerprints. Guess what my mother would do to you then?”
“Sure, you didn’t do anything wrong. But the law wouldn’t let that slide.”
She had finally snapped back to her senses.
Even amid the torment of her stomach pain, her mind remained clear.
Just moments ago, she had lost her composure and actually been bluffed by Shen An.
But now that she had calmed down and thought it through carefully, she immediately realized what was going on.
In fact, just as she had said, if she really ended up dying from the pain, Shen An wouldn’t be able to escape Zhao Li’s reckoning even if he fled to the ends of the earth.
Even if he wasn’t directly responsible, the crime of standing by and doing nothing would be unavoidable.
Shen An snapped irritably, “So what do you want me to do? You won’t go to the hospital, and you won’t let me call a doctor.”
“You’re not still fantasizing that you can fish for sympathy here with some self-injury ploy, are you?”
“I’ll say it again: I’m really not a doctor.”
Xu Yijing felt like she had regained the upper hand. She lifted her chin slightly and spoke to Shen An in a contemptuous tone. “How would I know?”
“You’re not stupid. Think about it—you should be able to come up with a solution.”
“I’ll drag you to the hospital right now.”
Shen An let out a light scoff. He turned back to the kitchen, turned off the stove first, then strode boldly toward Xu Yijing.
“Do whatever you want.”
Xu Yijing narrowed her eyes. “If you take me to the hospital, they’ll definitely notify my mother.”
“So?”
“So? Ha~” Xu Yijing said coolly, “Right now, I’d actually love for you to take me there. That way, I can pin all the blame on you.”
“My mother might not like me much, but no matter what, I’m still her daughter.”
“Compared to an outsider like you, she’ll side with me at least a little.”
Hearing this, Shen An immediately understood Xu Yijing’s scheme.
He had shamelessly clung on, relying on the imperial authorization from Zhao Li and refusing to leave. But Xu Yijing quickly came up with a counter: she would flip the script, damaging herself first before striking back at him.
Zhao Li’s orders to Shen An had been to ensure Xu Yijing’s well-being at all costs.
Her stomach condition had flared up, leaving her in agony.
Even if she was stubbornly enduring it out of pride, once they got to the hospital, how would Zhao Li react as a mother seeing her daughter in such a state? What would she think of Shen An?
Xu Yijing might not be able to sway Zhao Li directly, but she could use Zhao Li to drive Shen An away.
“Your reaction time is impressive.”
Shen An clapped his hands, unable to hold back a sigh of admiration.
“Same to you.”
Xu Yijing snorted coldly.
“So, what exactly do you want?”
Shen An asked softly.
If Xu Yijing truly intended to go through with it, she wouldn’t have said anything—she would have just let him take her to the hospital in silence.
The fact that she had spelled it out meant she had no real intention of letting him do so.
This was just Xu Yijing’s warning to Shen An.
She was warning him that his imperial authorization from Zhao Li wasn’t invincible.
“I’m almost at my limit.”
For the first time in front of Shen An, Xu Yijing showed weakness. She said in a low voice, “This flare-up came on suddenly, and it’s pretty severe.”
“Flare-up?” Shen An asked deliberately.
“Ha, didn’t my mother tell you? I actually have a chronic condition.” Xu Yijing gave a faint smile, but it looked strange.
It was like she was smiling, yet more like she was mocking something.
He couldn’t tell if she was mocking Zhao Li or Shen An’s feigned ignorance.
“What condition?”
Shen An’s expression grew serious as he bent down and squatted in front of Xu Yijing.
Xu Yijing paused. “You really don’t know?”
“I really don’t.”
Shen An shook his head solemnly. “If I had known, I never would have agreed to your mother’s request so easily.”
With that, he eagerly grasped Xu Yijing’s small hand and said anxiously, “You’re such an idiot. Why didn’t you tell me it was a flare-up? I thought you just had a bad case of diarrhea!”
He put on a look of belated realization, his face filled with unease and worry, tinged with a hint of guilt.
It was as if he felt remorse for having treated her condition so lightly.
Xu Yijing tilted her head, her gaze complex.
He… he really didn’t know?
She had assumed he knew everything, which was why he was standing by coldly, using it to retaliate and humiliate her.
She hadn’t expected…
“Don’t get worked up.”
She said softly, “There’s medicine in my room, but I don’t know if it’ll work.”
Shen An frowned. “You just said you didn’t have any. What game are you playing? Do you really not care about your own body at all?”
Xu Yijing shook her head and said nothing.
She had misjudged Shen An at first, thinking he was a doctor, then assuming he had struck some deal with her mother that she despised.
That was why she had come up with this plan, deliberately dragging things out to stage her self-injury ploy.
Shen An didn’t have time to scold her further. He immediately headed to her room to fetch the medicine.
Watching his suddenly panicked footsteps, Xu Yijing felt no thrill of triumph.
She just felt a bit lost.
Did he really know nothing? Was he just here… purely to take care of her?
This brief moment of hesitation made Xu Yijing waver, and she didn’t fully commit to her plan.
In the past, after Xu Yijing’s repeated warnings, Shen An had always kept his distance from her room, never even approaching it, let alone entering.
But now, everything was different.
He twisted open her bedroom door and was met with a sight that stunned him.
Xu Yijing’s room…
It was beyond his expectations.
Not in a luxurious way, but… messy.
Not dirty messy, but the kind of chaos from someone who didn’t know how to tidy up—picking things up and dropping them anywhere, accumulated over time.
It wasn’t filthy, just cluttered. Extremely cluttered.
There were no strange smells in the air, no stench, no mustiness—only a faint fragrance, Xu Yijing’s scent.
But the clothes scattered everywhere, along with the various small plush toys tossed around haphazardly… they opened Shen An’s eyes.
The contrast was too stark.
From her outward appearance, Xu Yijing always seemed so poised and detached, always impeccably dressed, always carrying that untouchable air of arrogance.
He had thought she at least had some level of neat-freak tendencies or OCD…
But what lay before him was an utterly disorganized space, belonging to a Xu Yijing who clearly had no idea how to clean up.
Wait a minute…
This level of mess…
Shen An looked around and felt it seemed familiar.
He racked his brain—damn, this was exactly like Zhao Qingyu’s room at the Vacation Resort!
No wonder Zhao Qingyu had been so disgusted back then, insisting over and over that it wasn’t her doing.
But she wouldn’t say who it was.
So it was Xu Yijing?
That meant… the family member Zhao Qingyu had mentioned was Xu Yijing?
Family…
Shen An narrowed his eyes.
Zhao Li’s Zhao, and Zhao Qingyu’s Zhao—they shared the same surname.
Could these two… be sisters?
Shen An smacked his lips inwardly. This development was something he had never anticipated.
But given how the two women regarded each other with hostility yet tried so hard to hide it, this guess seemed to fit the situation perfectly.
Because they were sisters, because they were family, even if they were dissatisfied, they did their best not to let outsiders know and maintained a facade of harmony.
Whew~
He pushed these thoughts aside for now. He needed to find Xu Yijing’s medicine first.
The room was such a mess that it would take some time.
As he bent down to search, Shen An suddenly caught sight of a flash of red.
Uh…
He averted his gaze, only to inadvertently spot another splash of color.
Ahem.
He stood up and started from her bedside table.
Lifting the surface layer of clothes revealed even more colors before his eyes.
One… two… three…
Shen An’s mouth twitched. He hadn’t found the medicine, but he had discovered several pieces of lingerie and bras.
He casually picked one up and chuckled to himself, “So this girl is secretly frisky, huh?”
It was indeed a bit provocative.
Xu Yijing’s usual attire was always serious and conservative, with rarely any revealing or sexy elements.
Forget short skirts—even wearing a skirt was a rarity for her.
But who could have imagined that beneath her stern exterior, she wore red lace lingerie?
Pah.
Shen An quickly shook off the stray thoughts. Why was he thinking about this now?
It made him seem like a pervert.
He set the garment down and searched carefully.
After rummaging around, Shen An finally spotted a white glass bottle in a corner.
Yes, a glass bottle, not a medicine bottle.
The glass bottle contained round white pills.
Her caution—or rather, her secrecy—was extreme.
At a glance, the glass bottle looked like it held candy, not medicine.
And Shen An couldn’t tell what kind of medicine it was just from the pills’ appearance.
He grabbed it and hurried out of the room.
Back in the living room in a flash, he found Xu Yijing curled up quietly on the sofa.
When she saw him again, a faint blush crept onto her sickly pale face.
Clearly, Xu Yijing realized that Shen An had discovered the state of her room.
But she tried her best to remain calm and composed, though the blush on her cheeks betrayed her.
She couldn’t help it.
Shen An held the glass bottle of white pills and stared at the flush on Xu Yijing’s face with a half-smile. “Now I get why you repeatedly warned me not to go near your room.”
Xu Yijing ignored his teasing and said coolly, “Get me a glass of water.”
“Want some candy?”
Shen An asked out of nowhere.
Xu Yijing replied instinctively. “Yes.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she froze, her head dipping low in a daze.
Ha~
Shen An quietly took in her little expression.
She seemed… kind of cute, in a way.
